Tag Archives: Cigars International

by CigarCraig | November 3, 2012 · 8:46 am

My Visit To The New Cigars International Superstore In Hamburg, PA

Friday I took a vacation day so that I could visit the newest super store in the Cigars International empire in nearby Hamburg, PA. My eldest son, Corey, and I drove up for the grand opening celebration. The first thing one sees when approaching the location is the Cabela’s store that sits on a hill, you can see this place for miles. The Cabela’s is enormous. In the shadow of Cabela’s is the newest Cigars International store.

Mike, who appeared to be the general manager, gave us a little tour of the place, along with Joe Winder, our local Perdomo rep. He walked us through the cigar store area, pointed out the downstairs bar and lounge complete with a pool table, then took us upstairs to the second bar and lounge. We walked around the outdoor deck and saw the view of the surrounding area. Across the parking lot they have an amphitheatre. He told us that they have a state of the art sound and entertainment system, if there’s a band playing in the amphitheater he can pipe it into any or all of the bars and lounges in the building. They also have what they call the “Man O War room”, a private meeting room overlooking the store as well as a lounge dedicated to the armed forces.

Corey and I bought some cigars and sat down in a couple comfy leather chairs to enjoy a smoke and take in the surroundings. The waitstaff is very attentive, they have waitresses moving throughout the store, inside and out, taking care of your beverage needs, and rumor has it that they have an agreement with the neighboring Red Robin restaurant where you can place an order and have it delivered in fifteen minute intervals. Did I mention the size of the store? You may or may not have visited the Cigars International Super Store in Bethlehem, PA, or JR‘s in New Jersey, or even Corona Cigars in Orlando. If you haven’t, you’ve probably seen pictures or heard stories about the enormity of those stores (the JR’s in North Carolina don’t count, as the cigar stores are located inside big outlet stores with every consumer good imaginable). This new location is easily twice the size of any of the aforementioned shops. I’d venture to say that Corona in Orlando may have them beat in variety of cigars, they just have a ridiculous number of facings, and I can’t speak to the 2 Guys and Smoke Inn chains as I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting them. It’s the biggest full service cigar store and lounge I’ve seen. At 4 o’clock they had the official opening, and half of the place cleared out to get in a line outside that went clear out to the parking lot. Everyone received a gift bag with a Gurkha Beauty cigar, a $5 CI gift card, and a commemorative pint glass, which Corey and I got on the way out (prompting a return to the cashier to purchase some more cigars, clever bastards!

It was nice to hang out in a comfortable setting and have a cigar with my son for the afternoon, get a chance to hang out with Dave Lafferty of Drew Estate for a while and see Nick Perdomo again. These pictures don’t do the place justice.

Antelope: is that Undercrown lion looking at me?

While there I smoked another Alec Bradley MAXX Brazil robusto that was delicious, and Corey had a Diesel Grind Robusto (I picked up a couple on his recommendation and smokedone on my evening walk, a very nice, smooth smoke!)

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Alec Bradley, cigar, cigar store, cigars, Cigars International, diesel, drew estate, Gurkha, Perdomo

by CigarCraig | October 28, 2012 · 9:43 am

A Camacho Cigar Event, a Room 101, a Genesis, an El Mejor and a Quick Contest

Last weekend I stopped in at International Tobacco in the King of Prussia Mall (one of the largest in the US, located just outside Philadelphia). I stop in here whenever I visit the mall, they have a nice coffee bar where you can sit and have a cigar and rest up from all the shopping :-). When I was there I found out that they were having a Camacho event to celebrate the addition of that line to their product mix. I like Tom Smith, the area Davidoff/Camacho/Cusano rep, so I figured since it’s 20 minutes or so down the road I’d stop in.

Having picked up a handful of Camacho Corojo Maduro Monarcas that I didn’t need last weekend, I purchased a couple Room 101 Daruma Lanceros and a Mostro (5″ x 60), and a couple of LegendArio just because I hadn’t t tried either and Tom recommended the Daruma. I got 2 of the 5 free for the event, which eased the financial pain a little . I sparked up one of the Lanceros and got to socializing. Tom introduced me to a gent named Chris, who was a former blogger, and we struck up a conversation about all things cigar. Chris introduced me to his friend Jay, who lives down the road from me. We had a terrific discussion of cigars, among other things, and I look forward to running into these guys again one of these days. The cigars was as outstanding as Tom had indicated. It was full bodied as one would expect, and the beauty of the Lancero format is that it forces you to smoke it slowly and really savor all that it has to offer. It was a very nice evening. Tom, the owner of the shop does a nice job with events, and I look forward to seeing Tom, the Davidoff rep again in the near future.

This seems like an appropriate place to throw in the video interview I did with Matt Booth at the IPCPR show. I managed to catch Matt right as the show closed and he graciously consented to spend a few minutes with me. Matt is a super-cool dude and his cigars are pretty awesome too. Which reminds me, did they have the Room 101 San Andreas at International Tobacco and I missed them? Anyway, here’s the video:

httpv://youtu.be/HpSABzpP4mI

Back to the retailer sponsored “reviews” I’ve been doing all week. The last two cigars I receive from Cigars International were the Genesis The Project by Ramon Bueso Robusto and an El Mejor Robusto. You may recall the last time I said that I started smoking this in order of my personal interest. I hadn’t heard of the Genesis The Project cigar until receiving it, and the name Ramon Bueso wasn’t familiar to me. The wrapper was very mottled and wrinkly, which doesn’t really show in the picture here. I thought the band was reminiscent of the Liga Privada band, adding a little to my preconception. Just a disclaimer, these opinions and biases are my own. The Genesis was a pretty powerful cigar and, despite it’s ugliness, it performed well. It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it certainly had plenty going for it. I’d say if you like a full flavored cigar with some strength, give this one a try.

As far as the El Mejor is concerned, I’ll admit to having a bias based on my impression that this is strictly a house brand. I’ve learned over the years to have lower expectations of house brands, that’s probably wrong, but that’s the way I feel. This cigar had an attractive, milk chocolate colored Corojo wrapper and lit and burned quite nicely. Once again, this one didn’t exactly wow me, but it was a solid, straight up cigar, certainly not a waste of time, and something I would smoke again, and I did smoke both cigars to a finger-burning nub, if that says anything.

I really appreciate Scott sending me these samples, and I hope to get to meet him this Friday when I go up to Hamburg, PA for the grand opening of their newest Super Store. I know some folks consider CI, Famous and the like, the Walmart of cigar stores, and I can see their points, especially when those people own local shops in the areas where these large companies open stores. Considering what we face from the government where cigars are concerned, I have trouble finding fault with someone who’s willing to shell out millions of dollars to build a cigar store. I am looking forward to seeing the new store, but there’s a lot to be said for the personal experience of sitting down in a small, family owned tobacco shop and enjoying a smoke!

Contest

One last thing, and you’ll have to act fast! I’ve been tweeting this week about a little contest. Today is the 2nd Annual #TickNTweet Virtual Walk, which benefits the Tick Borne Disease Alliance in their efforts to to help us build awareness, promote advocacy and support initiatives to find a cure for Lyme and other Tick-Borne diseases. I am a Lyme disease sufferer myself, so this is something important to me, especially since I live in the worst county in the country for Lyme disease. If you go to our page and make a donation, I’ll choose a random person and send a 5 pack from my humidor, and I promise there will be some great cigars in there. I personally appreciate any consideration you may give to this. Today is the last day to get in on this. Thanks!

That’s more than enough for today. Hopefully this storm that’s been getting all the hype doesn’t cause too much damage (Walmart’s water aisle was empty! There’s going to be plenty of water falling from the sky folks!). Stay safe out there!

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Events, Review, Stores

Tagged as Camacho, cigar, cigar store, cigars, Cigars International, El Mejor, Genesis, International Tobacco, IPCPR, Ramon Bueso, TBDA

by CigarCraig | October 24, 2012 · 8:46 pm

A Few Cigars International Exclusives: MAXX, Punch and Man O’ War

The next series of retailer driven reviews are brought to you by Cigars International. I was approached by Scott, a web guy at CI, and he sent along some of their exclusive products. Of course, my CDO (that’s OCD in the correct, alphabetical order) makes me worry too much about the order that I smoke the cigars, so it’s a constant battle. Should I smoke them alphabetically? Lightest to Darkest? Shortest to longest? I decided to smoke them in the order of my own personal interest level. I hadn’t previously smoked, nor in most cases even heard of most of the included cigars. So I started with the one which intrigued me the most.

The Alec Bradley MAXX Brazil was a beautiful, dark robusto. Whether I’ve ever stated it publicly or not I don’t know, but the robusto is my default size. 4”-5½” x 49-54, although a rather broad range, is the size range I find myself reaching for regularly. I rarely have the time to commit to a larger cigar, although I do like toros, and torpedos. I love the occasional corona or lancero too. I guess it would be safer to say my favorite size range is 4” to 7” x 38 to 60 ring. I’ve gotten silly and I digress. The MAXX Brazil was a fantastic smoke. It had that nice balance of flavor and strength. it’s not a heavy smoke, but very tasty and very satisfying. I loved the dark and rich cocoa flavors. This cigar suits my palate just about perfectly, and they are quite fairly priced, going for $3.00 to $5.00 each.

The next cigar I selected was a Punch Bareknuckle, this example being the Belicoso, weighing in at 5” x 50. Where the MAXX was smooth as butter, this Punch was a powerhouse. Despite the fact that the picture on the website shows a cigar with a smoking ¾” ash and an uncut cap, and I don’t care for footbands (another inconsistency in said photo) this is also an outstanding cigar. If you like the standard Punch line, this will appeal to you as well. It’s got a little more oomph, maybe a more concentrated flavor. Burn and draw were perfect and the belicoso shape was fun and interesting. Another winner.

Third up was the Man O’ War Side Projects Little Devil. This was a corona which fought with the previous two for my interest, but something in my head told me that this would be a tasty smoke, it being from A.J. Fernandez. I can’t think of a cigar from A.J. that I haven’t liked. I lit this cigar up and BAM!, there was a blast of loamy, musty, earthy tobacco goodness from the uncut foot. All that extra wrapper folded over the foot really shows how much flavor that Habano wrapper has. This cigar also burned very well and was very nicely presented with the unfinished foot and the little pig-tail head. These are still fairly priced at around $4. Steve Saka once told me that coronas cost almost as much to make as larger cigars, but they have to be priced quite a bit lower because of the perception that a smaller cigar has to cost a lot less than a larger one. So the people who buy larger cigars actually subsidize those of us who buy smaller ones! Anyway, this was a fun cigar to smoke.

I have two more cigars to smoke, I’ll cover those in Sunday’s installment. Tomorrow evening I’m going to visit International Tobacco in the King Of Prussia mall. This mall is one of the largest in the country, and it’s nice to have a shop in the mall where one can stop and smoke a cigar. They are having a Camacho event and I certainly like Camacho cigars. Probably an uninteresting fact, but the very first cigar I reviewed online was a Camacho Monarca back in 1996 when Steve Saka held a blind taste test on the alt.smokers.cigars news group, which eventually ended up on the now defunct CigarNexus website. I loved the Camacho, but one of the other cigars in the test was a Havana Montecristo No.2 that I called a dogrocket because it was so terrible. Anyway, thanks to Scott at CI for letting me try these cigars, they were all new to me and I think I found some gems. Is this post a big CI commercial? Maybe, but the cigars are good and well priced, worth a look if you have the chance.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Alec Bradley, Camacho, cigar, cigar store, cigars, Cigars International, Man O' War, Maxx, punch

by CigarCraig | October 21, 2012 · 9:54 am

Cuban Bullets, A Tortuga Cigar and Some Random News Items

In the past few weeks I’ve been approached by a few retailers asking me to “review” products for them. This is something fairly new to me, but of course retailers are as much a part of the cigar industry as manufacturers, one couldn’t exist long without the other! I figure I’ll do a quick series of posts highlighting these retailers and the products they shared with me. Unless otherwise noted, all I receive from these companies are a couple sample cigars. I’ll only accept these kind of offers from companies who I have patronized myself, and feel comfortable recommending. My hope is that fostering relationships such as this leads to possible contests so that I can get goodies into the hands of my faithful readers. Enough of the disclaimers and altruistic mumbo-jumbo!

I received an e-mail from Sheryl at Stogieboys.com offering to send me some samples for review. I became familiar with Stogieboys.com a few years agoe when they offered a Groupon which I purchased and subsequently turned into a box of Hoyo de Monterrey Sabroso Maduro, a really nice short smoke that I enjoy quite a bit. I talked to Paul, one of the owners on the phone and via e-mail and even featured a discount code here for a while. Anyway, they sent me a couple Cuban Bullet toro maduro cigars to smoke. I can remember the Perdomo releasing the original version of this in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s in torpedo shapes and the cigars were mixed filler and very well priced. These cigars have “Version 2.0” on the bands. The first thing I noticed and questioned was that the two cigars they sent had noticeably different wrapper colors. One of the ways that manufacturers can offer a good cigar at a low price is to cut out costly steps in the manufacturing process, like color sorting. I haven’t had one of these in 10 years or so, and I found this to be a very nice smoke. The smoke was reasonably heavy and it burned and drew perfectly. I have had plenty of cigars that cost twice as much or more that didn’t burn as well as this one. It was a really enjoyable smoke all the way to the end, when I put it down with under an inch left. There was a little bit of a burnt taste off the light, but it smoothed out quickly. That may have been a result of a hasty light.

With the second, lighter colored sample I took a little more care in lighting. This cigar had a little bit tighter draw than the first, resulting in a bit less of the full flavor and strength of the first. It was still very nice and was a pleasant and relaxing experience. I suppose this is another concession made to keep prices down, less consistency. If I hadn’t enjoyed the first one so much I wouldn’t have had high expectations for the second, but I was looking for a repeat performance and I got a bit of a different cigar, which I kind of anticipated given the color difference of the wrapper. I took my usual pictures of each cigar, but inadvertently deleted them and had to settle for stock photos. Pissed me off, but nothing I can do about it! Anyway, this is a nice smoke that is very well priced. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was mixed filler or long filler. A nice, inexpensive smoke from Perdomo that I’ll pick up from time to time.

Yesterday afternoon I sat down on the patio in the nice, warm October sunshine and enjoyed a Tortuga 215 Edición Limitada 2011 Torpedo. This is a really nice Nicaraguan and Dominican blend made by Victor Vitale in the Dominican Republic. It’s a super smooth yet full flavored cigar with outstanding construction. I smoked this while catching up with the audio portion of Stogie411 and soaking up some fall sunshine. The Tortuga line consists of this Habano (I think) wrapped cigar, a Connecticut 1948 and a Maduro 1950, all of which are outstanding examples of the roller and blenders arts, with the Maduro being my absolute favorite. Delicious cigars that are, unfortunately, not widely available. Thank you to Victor for sharing these with me and congrats on your recent nuptials!

News

The November issue of National Geographic arrived yesterday featuring a map of Cuba on the cover with the caption “On the Edge Of Change”. I’ll be interested to read this article to see what it’s about. Also in the news, there are rumors once again that Castro has had a stroke and is on death’s door (article here). Certainly rumors of Castro’s death have popped up many times, and how long will Fidel be dead before the Cuban government admits it? In some real news, StogieReview reports the impending opening of another Cigars International Super Store in Hamburg, PA (an hour north of my location), right next to Cabellas, which could mean a testosterone filled field trip for many of us.

That’s enough for now, it’s another beautiful day in SE PA, I may have to smoke a cigar sometime today!!

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Castro, cigar, cigar stores, cigars, Cigars International, Cuban Bullet, National Geographic, Perdomo, Stogie411, StogieBoys, StogieReview, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | March 11, 2012 · 8:39 pm

Saturday Cigar Adventure: Cigars International Alec Bradley Event

Saturday’s cigar adventure took us north to Bethlehem, PA to the Cigars International Super Store. They were holding an event featuring Alec Bradley Cigars, Alan Ruben, George Sosa and Jonathan Lipson were in attendance. My wife came along for the ride, so it made for a nice date (for me more than her, I suppose). I had missed meeting Alan at the IPCPR show last year, their booth was so stinkin’ busy it wasn’t funny. Every time I stopped by there were tons of folks there doing business. Alan greeted me at the door and introductions were made. I made my way through the store and grabbed a handful of Alec Bradley American Classic Blend Gordos, received a Black Market with my purchase, and set fire to one of the Gordos. I really enjoy the flavor of this cigar. It’s not too heavy with some fairly “bright” flavors, and the price point is very friendly at about $5.50 for the 6″x60 size. I’ve always liked coronas and robustos, as well as the rest of the traditional sizes, but I have to admit the larger ring cigars are a little bit of a guilty pleasure lately, not sure why that is. I find the band to be visually appealing as well, although I usually don’t concern myself with such things. While I was enjoying my cigar, I spent a little time talking with Jonathan, who is new to Alec Bradley, but not to the industry, George Sosa, who my wife and I had met at the 2008 IPCPR show, and Alan. We also roamed around the expansive store, checking out the other merchandise and lounge areas. If you are within a few hours drive of Bethlehem, PA, you should check this place out. It’s like a supermarket of cigars, and the staff is friendly and attentive.

A question I had for Alan was in reference to one of my favorite cigars from days gone by, their Trilogy line. These were a triangular pressed cigar, which was unique, that came in three sizes (Churchill, Robusto and Torpedo) as well as three wrappers (Authentic Corojo, Exotic Maduro, and Native Cameroon). This was the company’s first really big hit, and was an outstanding cigar, whatever you may think of the odd shape. I enjoyed the line so much that I bought a box once to hand out at a cigar event, because I wanted everyone to try it. Anyway, I asked what happened to that line, and Alan answered that they had a hard time getting retailers to carry all nine facings, and the sales were sporadic, one month the Maduro would sell like crazy, the next Corojo, and so on. They eventually discontinued it as they were bringing items like Tempus and other marques that were easier to market. He also alluded to the fact that he gets this question a lot and they still have the special molds, so there’s a possibility something like the Trilogy may make a reappearance. I know I’ll be keeping an eye open for that! A quick search shows me that there are a couple online retailers that may have stocks of what I can only assume are the round versions of the Trilogy. Might be worth exploring for old time’s sake.

As we were leaving, we were talking to Alan about kids, since our boys like cigars, and his company is named after his boys, one of which is now over 18, and going to cigar events and apparently amassing a pretty good collection of cigars. Alan related a story about his son keeping three humidors, one that he puts cigars that his dad can take, one that if his dad takes cigars from, he’d rather he didn’t, but he’d me OK with, and a third that he keeps hidden! I thought this was pretty funny. My eldest son has his own humidors and I don’t worry about him, and I told my youngest son, who has recently taken to cigars, to make sure to ask me before he goes into my humidors. I know he’s done a pretty good job of going through my coolers based on some of the cigars he’s inquired about, but as long as he asks, I’m happy to share. It was a nice day out. Maybe I’m a little nuts to drive an hour and a half to go to a cigar shop and hang out for a smoke, but I am a little bit of a cigar geek I suppose (ya think?) It’s never disappointing to meet and talk to people in the cigar industry and smoke a great cigar!